After 160 years, the spirits in the Oxford Historical Cemetery may finally rest in peace.
A decade ago, former Oxford College professor Mark Auslander ventured into the cemetery with his students and discovered a mysterious scenario. The white section of the formerly segregated cemetery was well-maintained while the black section had grown wild. The students were fascinated enough to stage a clean up and Auslander, an anthropologist, was intrigued enough to dig deeper.
Nestled in the white section of the cemetery, buried next to Methodist bishop James Osgood Andrew, was the grave of Catherine "Miss Kitty" Boyd, a slave woman whose story for more than a century had divided the town, the Methodist church and by extension, the nation.
"In the middle of the struggle over the cemetery, what everyone cared most about... was the story of Miss Kitty," said Auslander, associate professor of anthropology at Central Washington University. "White members of the community were invested in the story that Miss Kitty was a loyal happy mammy and servant. [For them] she summed up the whole story of race relations in the state of Georgia. For African-Americans in town, the story was so different."
Auslander's research resulted in "The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race & Finding An American Family," (The University of Georgia Press, $24.95) in which he attempts to uncover the truth behind the legend of Miss Kitty and Bishop Andrew, the first president of Emory's Board of Trustees.
As history tells it, Kitty, a slave of mixed-race was willed to the bishop at a young age by a rich woman from Augusta. Upon adulthood, she was given the choice to be transported to an African colony where she could live as a free woman. According to written records, when Kitty came of age, she declined her freedom. Bishop Andrew built her a cottage and Kitty later married and had three children, but in 1844 when northern Methodist leaders learned the bishop was a slaveholder, it created a rift in the church. Andrew was asked to shed his slaves or step down. He claimed his status as a slave owner was accidental, ultimately causing the 95-year split of the north and south Methodist churches. The event is often cited as a precursor to the Civil War 17 years in the future.
Whites in the small town of Oxford -- the birthplace of Emory University and the spiritual center of the Methodist church -- accept this version of Kitty's story, Auslander said. But African-Americans in town are skeptical. Many feel Kitty was Bishop Andrew's mistress who had no real choice in accepting her freedom and who had the final indignity of being buried next to Andrew.
"They emphasize that everyone suffered terribly in slavery, but there is a particular horror for this woman who ... even when she died was placed next to Bishop Andrew where she will rest for all eternity," Auslander said.
When Auslander began hunting Kitty's history, the black community in Oxford asked him to do one thing: to find Kitty's descendants and confirm they had reached safe harbor after being sent away in 1855. "That seemed an impossible order," Auslander said. Then he found a Nathan Boyd in Washington, D.C. and another Nathan Boyd buried in Atlanta's Oakland Cemetery. They turned out to be Kitty's son and husband respectively.
When Auslander found an Alfred Boyd in Iowa, he hit the road.
Alfred, or Alford as he was known by family, was Miss Kitty's eldest son and a cook in the union army, who eventually became an ordained pastor of the African Methodist Church. The trail led Auslander to Rockford, Ill., where Alford's great grandson, the late Lee Caldwell was a trustee of the church his great grandfather founded. Caldwell's daughters Darcel and Cynthia, both of Philadelphia, learned of their great great great grandmother when Auslander came calling in the summer of 2009.
"It was kind of surreal," said Darcel Caldwell, 58, "I couldn't believe it was me. I'm still kind of grappling with that."
Cynthia Caldwell, 56, first asked Auslander for proof, but her skepticism soon gave way to joy.
"Hearing of the significance that she has had to the Emory and Oxford communities and beyond is very humbling," she said.
Both sisters said they feel a sense of responsibility to their newly discovered ancestor and her memory. Earlier this year, they helped the town of Oxford create a new headstone that recognizes Kitty by her given name and her role as mother, wife and community member, rather than merely a loyal servant. On Sunday, they saw the new headstone installed.
Though Auslander opens the book by recounting his first meeting with Lee Caldwell -- thereby fulfilling the request of African-Americans in Oxford to find Kitty's descendants -- he acknowledges there is no tidy answer to the question of Miss Kitty.
"I still don't feel we can say with confidence what happened," Auslander said. "It is one of those deep American mysteries. But that is the case for so many thousands of American stories."
Event Preview
Book Signing "The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race & Finding An American Family," by Mark Auslander (The University of Georgia Press, $24.95).
4 p.m. Monday. Free. Emory University, Woodruff Library, Jones Room, 540 Asbury Circle. 404-727-6861. www.emory.edu
7 p.m. Tuesday. Free. Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave. N.E. 404-730-4001.www.afpls.org.
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